Various mechanisms exist for reducing power consumption of computing devices. Standard technology for power management is specified in, for example, Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) version 2.0, published Jul. 27, 2000, (jointly developed by Hewlett-Packard, Intel, et al.). ACPI is the standard most computer systems currently use for power management and is used to describe how the system looks to the operating system. Power management capabilities enable a computing device, both at component and system level, to change its operating state to use less power and to resume normal operations. These modes of operation, for purposes of this description, will be called suspended and active states. A number of events (herein “sleep” events) may trigger a computing device to transition from an active higher power consumption state to an inactive lower power consumption state, while a number of other events (herein “wake” events) may trigger a computing device to transition from an inactive low power consumption state to a more active higher power consumption state. For instance, a sleep event may trigger a computing device to go into a suspended state. Such sleep events may be as a result of perhaps due to time, inactivity, or user selection. When a computing device goes into a suspended state, many of the device components (e.g., main processor such as the central processing unit (CPU), volatile memory, disk drives for mass storage, and so forth) may be placed into a non-functional or sleep mode. On the other hand, a wake event may occur when moving a mouse, pressing a key on the keyboard, receiving a message, or receiving a query from a remote system administrator may cause a computing device to transition to an active state from a sleep, or low-power, state.
Conventionally, computing devices must be in an active state to handle a wake event. This means that many or all of the device components must be functional or operational in order to handle the wake event.